Dominie Dean: A Novel. Butler Ellis Parker
up her mouth and kissed him. Then she fell limp in his arms.
She had not fainted and David knew it was all mere pretense. He knew she had been in no danger, for his legs were wet only to the knees, and if ‘Thusia was drenched from head to foot it was because she had deliberately thrown herself into the water. He felt it was all a trick and he shook her violently as he tried to push her away.
“Stop it!” he cried. “Stop this nonsense!” but even as a dozen men crowded around them he lifted her in his arms and carried her up the railway embankment. Below them Mary Wiggett stood, safely back from the dangerous edge of the ice.
“Get a rig as quickly as you can,” David commanded. “She’s not hurt, but she’ll take cold in these wet clothes. Mary Wiggett,” he called, seeing her in the group on the ice, “I want you to come with us.”
He carried ‘Thusia to the street and rested her on a handcar that stood beside the railway and wrapped her in his greatcoat. The crowd, of course, followed. David sent a boy to tell Mr. Fragg to hurry home. And all this while, and while they were waiting for the rig that soon came, ‘Thusia continued her pretended faint, and David knew she was shamming. He lifted her into the buggy. It was then she opened her eyes with a faint “Where am I?”
“You know well enough,” David answered and turned to Mary Wiggett. “Come! Get in!” he ordered. “She has been pretending a faint.” David, who tried to keep an even mind under all circumstances, never quite understood the reasoning that led him to drag Mary Wiggett into the affair in this way. He felt vaguely that she was protection; it had seemed the thing he must do. He was angry with ‘Thusia, so angry that he felt like beating her and he was afraid of himself because even while he hated her for the trick she had played the clasp of her arms had filled him with joy. He was afraid of ‘Thusia.
Without hesitation or demur Mary clambered into the buggy, and David helped ‘Thusia in and drove the heavy vehicle through the muddy streets to ‘Thusia’s door. He lifted her out and carried her into the house and helped her up the stairs to her room, and there he left her with Mary. From the sitting room below he could hear Mary moving about. He heard her come down and put the sadirons on the stove to heat and heard her mixing some hot drink. When Mr. Fragg reached the house ‘Thusia was tucked between blankets with hot irons at her feet, and Mary came down as David ended his explanation of the affair.
“I think she’ll be all right now,” Mary said. “She has stopped shivering and is nice and warm. We’ll stop for Dr. Benedict, Mr. Fragg, just to make sure.”
On the way home David asked Mary to marry him. She did not pretend unwillingness. She was surprised to be asked just then, but she was happy and she tucked her arm under his affectionately and David clasped her hand. He was happy, quite happy. They stopped to send Dr. Benedict to the Fraggs and then David drove Mary home. She held his hand a moment or two as she stood beside the buggy at her gate.
“You’ll come up this evening, David, won’t you?” she asked. “Wait, David, I’ll have our man drive you home and take this rig back wherever it came from,” she added with a pleasing air of new proprietorship; “you must go straight home and change into something dry. And be sure to come up this evening.”
“I will,” said David, and she turned away. She turned back again immediately.
“David,” she said hesitatingly; “about ‘Thusia – I feel so sorry for her. She has no mother and I think lately she has been trying to be good. I feel as if – ”
“Yes,” said David, “I feel that too.”
“Well, then, it will be all right!” said Mary happily. “And remember, change your clothes as soon as you get home, David Dean!”
When David opened the door of the manse he stood for a minute letting his happiness have its own way with him. He imagined the little house as it would be with Mary in it as the mistress and, in addition to the glow of heart natural to an accepted lover, he felt he had chosen wisely. His wife would be a help and a refuge; she would be peace and sympathy at the end of every weary day.
Then he climbed the stairs to change his wet garments as Mary had wisely ordered.
III. THE COPPERHEAD
WHEN Sumter was fired upon David Dean had been in Riverbank not quite a year, but he had passed through the first difficult test of the young minister, and Mary Wiggett’s smile seemed to have driven from the minds of his people the opposition they had felt when it seemed he was, or might become, too fond of ‘Thusia Fragg. Poor little ‘Thusia! The bright, flirting, reckless butterfly of a girl, captured soul, mind and body by her first glimpse of David’s cool gray eyes, knew – as soon as Mary Wiggett announced that David had proposed and had been accepted – that David was not for her. Mary Wiggett, inheriting much of hard-headed old Samuel Wiggett’s common sense, was not apt to let David escape and David had no desire to escape from the quite satisfactory position of future husband of Mary Wiggett. As the months of the engagement lengthened he liked Mary more and more.
The announcement of the dominie’s engagement settled many things. It settled the uneasiness that is bound to exist while a young, unmarried minister is still free to make a choice, and it settled the fear that David might make a fool of himself over ‘Thusia Fragg. While his congregation did not realize what an attraction ‘Thusia had had for David, they had feared her general effect on him. With David engaged to the leading elder’s daughter, and that daughter such a fine, efficient blond young woman as Mary was, there was peace and David was happy. He had no trouble in stifling the feeling for ‘Thusia that he felt had come dangerously near being love.
Until Riverbank was thrown into a rage by the news from Fort Sumter David, with due regard for his motto, “Keep an even mind under all circumstances,” had prepared to settle down into a state of gentle usefulness and to become the affectionate husband of the town’s richest man’s daughter. The wedding was to be when Mary decided she was quite ready. She was in no great haste, and in the flame of patriotism that swept all Iowa with the first call for troops and the subsequent excitement as the town and county responded and the streets were filled with volunteers Mary postponed setting a day. David and Mary were both busy during those early war days. Almost too soon for belief lists of dead and wounded came back to Riverbank, followed by the pale cripples and convalescents. Loyal entertainments and “sanitary fairs” kept every young woman busy, and there is no doubt that David did more to aid the cause by staying at home than by going to the front. He was willing enough to go, but all Iowa was afire and there were more volunteers than could be accepted. No one expected the war to last over ninety days. More said sixty days.
Little ‘Thusia Fragg, forgiven by Mary and become her protégée, was taken into the councils of the women of David’s church in all the loyal charitable efforts. She was still the butterfly ‘Thusia; she still danced and appeared in gay raiment and giggled and chattered; but she was a forgiven ‘Thusia and did her best to be “good.” Like all the young women of the town she was intensely loyal to the North, but her loyalty was more like the fiery spirit of the Southern women than the calmer Northern loyalty of her friends.
As the lists of dead grew and the war, at the end of ninety days, seemed hardly begun, loyalty and hatred and bitterness became almost synonymous. Riverbank, on the Mississippi, held not a few families of Southern sympathizers, and the position of any who ventured to doubt the right of the North to coerce the South became most unpleasant. Wise “Copperheads” kept low and said nothing, but they were generally known from their antebellum utterances, and they were looked upon with distrust and hatred. The title “Copperhead” was the worst one man could give another in those days. As the war lengthened one or two hot outspoken Democrats were ridden out of the town on rails and the rest, for the most part, found their sympathies change naturally into tacit agreement with those of their neighbors. It was early in the second year of the war that old Merlin Hinch came to Riverbank County. It was a time when public feeling against Copperheads was reaching the point of exasperation.
Merlin Hinch, with his few earthly goods and his wife and daughter, crossed the Mississippi on the ferry in a weather-beaten prairie schooner a few weeks before plowing time. He came from the East but he volunteered nothing about his past.